Dont Impeach – The Atlantic

The best way to contain the danger Trump continues to pose to our democratic institutions is, simply, to run out the clock.

Trumps opponents could try to remove him from office through either impeachment or the Twenty-Fifth Amendment.

To remove Trump from office under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, the vice president and the majority of the Cabinet would need to agree that he has become incapable of exercising the duties of the presidency. If Trump contested this determination, as he surely would, Congress would decide his fate. Unless two-thirds of both the House and the Senate declared him unfit, he could resume his duties.

Use of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment would have an important advantage over impeachment. The initial step would be taken by Trumps own appointees. This would minimize the risk that the attempt to oust him would turn into a purely partisan affair that pits the great majority of Democrats against the great majority of Republicans.

Even so, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment is neither a wise nor a realistic path toward removing Trump from office. It is unwise because it would clearly violate the spirit of the amendment. After John F. Kennedys assassination, Democrats and Republicans agreed that the country needed clearer provisions for how to handle emergency situations in which a president becomes incapacitated. As Lyndon B. Johnson explained in his second State of the Union address, he would soon propose laws to insure the necessary continuity of leadership should the President become disabled or die. Trump simply does not fit that criterion.

Brian C. Kalt: The whole point of the 25th Amendment

As I have argued ever since he declared his candidacy, Trump is morally unfit for office. A man so beholden to his own ego, and so willing to attack the countrys institutions, should never have been elected president of the United States. But this does not mean that he is either mentally or physically incapacitated. On the contrary, he remains what he always has been: an authoritarian populist who believes that he alone speaks for the American people, and who is unwilling to tolerate constitutional constraints on his power. To oust him by use of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment would amount to fighting an antidemocratic leader by antidemocratic means.

The second problem is simpler but more definitive. Some members of Trumps Cabinet are clearly disgusted by his recent actions. But there is simply no indication that a significant number of them is willing to claim that he is incapacitated. Elaine Chao and Betsy DeVos have, instead, chosen to resign. And although Vice President Mike Pence defied his boss by affirming the electoral count, he has since ruled out making use of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment.

This leaves one more avenue: impeaching Trump for a second time.

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Dont Impeach - The Atlantic